Her Son Died by Suicide the Day After Homecoming. Now She Shares His Story with Millions Online (Exclusive)

Lori Wal­ton start­ed The Dee­gan Project after her son, Dee­gan, took his own life the day after home­com­ing

NEED TO KNOW

• After her 17-year-old son Dee­gan died by sui­cide, Lori Wal­ton chose to speak open­ly about his men­tal health strug­gles to break the silence sur­round­ing teen depres­sion
• She began shar­ing Deegan’s sto­ry on Tik­Tok, where her videos have reached thou­sands — even sav­ing the lives of teens who said they chose to seek help after see­ing her posts.
• Now, through The Dee­gan Project, Lori and her fam­i­ly are turn­ing their grief into action

Sev­en­teen-year-old Dee­gan Wal­ton had a smile that could light up any room. Out­go­ing, fun­ny and end­less­ly curi­ous, he shared his moth­er Lori’s love of cars, rac­ing and any­thing with an engine.

“He was my lit­tle side­kick,” says Lori, 50. “We did every­thing togeth­er — sang in the car, worked on projects. He was so much like me.”

But in the fall of 2023, Lori began notic­ing sub­tle changes in her son. Though he still laughed and joked, some­thing beneath the sur­face seemed dif­fer­ent.

Cour­tesy of Lori Wal­ton Lori Wal­ton with her late-son Dee­gan as a kid

It start­ed with a bon­fire at a friend’s house — one Dee­gan hadn’t known about. He wasn’t invit­ed. The fol­low­ing week, he host­ed his own get-togeth­er, fill­ing the house with laugh­ter and music. Yet Lori sensed some­thing was off when she found him upstairs, alone, while his friends were down­stairs.

A few days lat­er, the unease deep­ened. After Lori and her hus­band returned from a day on the lake, Dee­gan asked his mom to come out­side. At first, she thought it was one of his usu­al pranks. But when she saw his face, she knew some­thing was wrong.

“He drove us to the end of the street,” Lori recalls. “I said, ‘Dee­gan, slow down. What’s hap­pen­ing?’ He turned the car around, put it in park, unbuck­led his seat­belt — and I’ll nev­er for­get the look on his face. He was bro­ken. He was sob­bing and said, ‘I need help. I’m so sad all the time.’ ”

For more than an hour, they talked — about school, about friends, about how he felt left out. He told Lori that a friend had asked the girl he’d been pur­su­ing to home­com­ing. “Mom, every­one knew except me,” he said. “They were all mak­ing jokes.”

Lori learned that some class­mates had stopped includ­ing him. “It was sim­ple but cru­el,” she says. “He just want­ed to belong.”

Cour­tesy of Lori Wal­ton Dee­gan Wal­ton in front of a car

In the days that fol­lowed, Lori kept a close eye on him. Dee­gan stayed home from school for a bit, then returned, but noth­ing was the same. He wore ear­buds to tune things out and often sat alone at lunch.

Even moments of excite­ment couldn’t lift him for long. A recent car event had left him elat­ed, but the high didn’t last. On home­com­ing night, he joined his par­ents for din­ner and a movie instead of going out, then stopped by an after-par­ty before return­ing home.

When he came back lat­er, he sat qui­et­ly in the dri­ve­way for a while. Lori texted to check in, and he replied that he was fine. Even­tu­al­ly, he came inside, said good­night, and went to bed — like any ordi­nary night.

The next morn­ing, Oct. 1, 2023, Dee­gan was sup­posed to join his fam­i­ly at Lake St. Clair. Lori peeked in on him before they left. He was awake, jok­ing and laugh­ing — seem­ing­ly him­self.

“He said he had a stats exam to study for, and his books were spread out on the counter,” Lori recalls. “There was no rea­son to think any­thing was wrong.”

But lat­er that morn­ing, Dee­gan died by sui­cide. He had crashed his car into an oak tree 2.7 miles from their home.

In an instant, the ordi­nary rhythms of their lives — laugh­ter, errands, the hum of home — were shat­tered.

“The world just stopped,” Lori says. “It’s every parent’s worst night­mare.”

Cour­tesy of Lori Wal­ton The Wal­ton fam­i­ly

In the days that fol­lowed, the grief was unbear­able — and the stig­ma came imme­di­ate­ly. The very next day, peo­ple began ask­ing what the fam­i­ly was going to tell oth­ers. Still, Lori and her hus­band made a dif­fi­cult choice: they wouldn’t hide the truth.

“Keep­ing qui­et would only add to the silence,” she says. “We want­ed peo­ple to know they’re not alone.”

Know­ing they want­ed to help oth­er kids in their com­mu­ni­ty, the cou­ple start­ed small — by bring­ing a men­tal health speak­er to Deegan’s school. “We did a lot of research to find some­one who would real­ly con­nect with high school stu­dents,” Lori recalls. “That was much hard­er than you might think.”

A few months lat­er, with encour­age­ment from her old­er son, Christo­pher, and his girl­friend, Olivia, Lori shared Deegan’s sto­ry on Tik­Tok and Insta­gram, hop­ing to reach teens who might be strug­gling in silence.

The expe­ri­ence made her real­ize how many teens were qui­et­ly strug­gling. “My hus­band and I said, if we can reach just one per­son who’s feel­ing like Dee­gan did — and it changes their mind — then it’s worth it,” she says. “And then it just explod­ed. The response was over­whelm­ing.”

With­in months, thou­sands began fol­low­ing their accounts, shar­ing how Deegan’s sto­ry had changed the way they saw men­tal health and loss. One video, sim­ply cap­tioned “The boy who was fine,” show­ing old pho­tos of Dee­gan, reached near­ly a mil­lion peo­ple.

Lori still remem­bers one mes­sage vivid­ly — a teen who said they had planned to end their life that day but came across her Tik­Tok instead. “They told me they chose to talk to their par­ents,” she says.

“Those sto­ries stick with me,” Lori adds. “When peo­ple ask what I hope Deegan’s lega­cy is, it’s that peo­ple keep choos­ing to stay because they’ve heard his sto­ry.”

The out­pour­ing of mes­sages gave her and her hus­band a new sense of pur­pose. One day, he turned to her and asked, “Do you want to real­ly do this? Like a non­prof­it?”

From that deter­mi­na­tion, The Dee­gan Project, a Michi­gan-reg­is­tered non­prof­it, was born.

What began as a hope to con­nect with teens has grown into an orga­ni­za­tion that pro­vides schol­ar­ships for stu­dents enter­ing the trades and men­tal health fields, hosts inclu­sive events like Cars and Cof­fee, and part­ners with local schools to offer free or slid­ing-scale men­tal health ser­vices.

“We want to pro­vide a safe space — some­where they can go and know they’re not alone,” Lori explains. “Deegan’s sto­ry dri­ves every­thing we do. It’s why we keep going.”

Her long-term goal is to even­tu­al­ly expand nation­wide. “If a kid is brave enough to ask for help, there should be no rea­son they can’t get it,” she says. “That’s what we’re work­ing toward — mak­ing sure those resources are there when they need them.”

Cour­tesy of Lori Wal­ton Dee­gan Wal­ton with his car
Cour­tesy of Lori Wal­ton Dee­gan Wal­ton with his car
Lori her­self returned to school for a men­tal health cer­ti­fi­ca­tion as a nurse prac­ti­tion­er, pro­vid­ing coun­sel­ing and med­ica­tion man­age­ment to those in need.

“When I speak to a group, I nev­er just come out and say what hap­pened,” Lori says. “I always talk about Dee­gan first because I want peo­ple to have a pic­ture of him — this hap­py, fun­ny, car­ing kid who was always laugh­ing and jok­ing, who played sports, had tons of friends and a cool car.”

She paus­es. “None of those things fit the stereo­type peo­ple have of depres­sion. That’s why I share his sto­ry — because it can hap­pen to any­one.”

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In the time since Deegan’s pass­ing, Lori says the sup­port from their com­mu­ni­ty has meant every­thing.

“Some of the par­ents of Deegan’s friends — peo­ple we didn’t even know that well before — have real­ly been there for us,” she says. “Any­thing we’ve need­ed, they’ve shown up with­out hes­i­ta­tion. Whether it’s help­ing with The Dee­gan Project or just get­ting togeth­er for din­ner, they’ve made it easy for us to reach out.”

She adds that their small Michi­gan town has also ral­lied around them. “We’ve leaned on our fam­i­ly, our friends and our com­mu­ni­ty in so many ways,” Lori says. “Any­thing we’ve tried to do, peo­ple have been sup­port­ive. We’re real­ly grate­ful for that.”

Even amidst the work, Lori allows her­self moments to grieve. When she miss­es Dee­gan most, she lets her­self cry.

“From day one, peo­ple said, ‘You car­ry your­self with such grace,’ or ‘You’re so strong.’ I don’t know if that’s true — I just don’t have a choice. I still have to put one foot in front of the oth­er every day. But when I real­ly miss him, I don’t try to be strong. I just let myself feel.”

And in those moments, she thinks of him — of his humor, his light, the way he could always make her laugh. “The oth­er day, I told my hus­band I was hav­ing a real­ly hard time. I was cry­ing, and I said, ‘If Dee­gan were here, he’d do some­thing sil­ly — tell a joke or make a face — just to make me laugh.’ ”

She smiles soft­ly. “I just hope that if he’s up there look­ing down, he thinks, ‘That’s my mom. She’s doing cool things.’ More than any­thing, I just hope he’s proud of me.”